Flyzipline

Sr. Manager, Powertrain Test Engineering

South San Francisco, California, USA · Senior

Sponsorship not specifiedDetected 1 day ago

PythonAlgorithmsStatisticsLogisticsThermal AnalysisEMI/EMCElectrical EngineeringLeadershipProblem SolvingActuators

About the role

About Zipline Zipline is the world's largest and most experienced drone delivery service.
Today, Zipline operates on four continents, makes a delivery somewhere in the world every 30 seconds, and has completed millions of deliveries to date, including blood, vaccines, medical supplies, food, and retail products.
The drone is only 15% of what we've built to enable seamless, reliable, global operations.

Responsibilities

Hire, lead, and grow a team of specialist test engineers and technicians responsible for motor and actuator performance, propeller performance, and component qualification and life testing.
Develop and drive multi-month test campaigns for BLDC motor performance (torque/speed curves, efficiency mapping, back-EMF and cogging torque characterization) across the full flight envelope, including edge-of-envelope and failure-mode conditions.
Own test methods for motor electromagnetic performance: flux linkage, inductance, torque ripple, iron and copper losses, switching losses, hysteresis, demagnetization risk, and EMI/EMC behavior, partnering with Electrical and Controls Engineering to validate motor models against thrust testing and dynamometer data.
Develop and validate thermal models against instrumented test data
design thermal test setups to characterize heat generation, dissipation paths, and thermal limits, and use results to close the loop with Design Engineering on cooling strategy and derating curves.
Own propeller test programs including propeller performance (thrust, power, efficiency, acoustic signature) and structural durability, including fatigue and damage-tolerance testing under representative and oscillatory loading.
Own actuator and servo motor test programs for motors used in flight-critical control surfaces and mechanisms, including position and rate accuracy, cogging torque, backlash, and bandwidth.
Apply reliability concepts to drive rapid fault identification and design opportunities, including accelerated life testing and destructive testing.
Drive failure analysis testing for field hardware and test failures.
Partner with (or lead directly) equipment design engineering teams to develop large-scale custom test equipment used in powertrain testing, including thrust testing, wind tunnels, and dynamometers.

Nice to have

Push the team to greatness through first-principles analysis, excellent technical judgment, deep understanding of how components are used, and fast execution with an emphasis on getting unblocked.
8+ years of experience in hardware test engineering, reliability engineering, or propulsion/powertrain development, including 2+ years in a people management or technical leadership role.
Deep hands-on experience testing electric motors (BLDC preferred) and/or propellers.
You understand thrust, torque, power, and efficiency trade-offs and how to instrument for them.
Strong understanding of motor thermal modeling and test correlation.
Strong understanding of motor electromagnetics, including factors affecting flux linkage, characterization of different motor losses, and how these are measured or inferred from test data.
Experience testing actuators or servo motors, including position/rate control performance, endurance, and failure-mode characterization.
Demonstrated experience designing or specifying large, complex test equipment, including dynamometers, thrust stands, wind-generation systems, environmental chambers, or similar aerodynamic/mechanical test rigs.

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